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The jawbone fragment came from a huge fish (diagram courtesy of Dr Shimada)
Posted on 02/24/2010 9:51:06 AM PST by JoeProBono
The fossilised remains of a gigantic 10m-long predatory shark have been unearthed in Kansas, US.
Scientists dug up a gigantic jawbone, teeth and scales belonging to the shark which lived 89 million years ago. The bottom-dwelling predator had huge tooth plates, which it likely used to crush large shelled animals such as giant clams.
Palaeontologists already knew about the shark, but the new specimen suggests it was far bigger than previously thought.
The scientists who made the discovery, published in the journal Cretaceous Research, last week also released details of other newly discovered giant plankton-eating fish that swam in prehistoric seas for more than 100 million years.
The size of the jaw fragment in fact supports the contention that P. mortoni was a gigantic animal Dr Kenshu Shimada, DePaul University But this new fish, called Ptychodus mortoni, is both bigger and more fierce, having a taste for flesh rather than plankton.
It may even have been the largest shellfish-eating animal ever to have roamed the Earth.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
The jawbone fragment came from a huge fish (diagram courtesy of Dr Shimada)
Compared to some of the other nasties that swam around the Inland Sea at that time this shark was relatively harmless; big but fed on clams. Sounds like a giant Nurse Shark.
A nurse shark may be similar in shape but not size to the prehistoric fossil
Sharks aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.
“predatory”???
WOW!
That’s new!
Ho-hum, another lawyer story.........
Land Shark!
Is that because of that global warming thingy that AlGore talks about?
I hate to get too technical, but I am an ecologist and am sensitive to the use of ecological terms. That said, ALL sharks are primarily predatory, regardless of their size. Even if they are plankton feeders - guess what - they PREY on plankton. Here’s the technical part, predation, always results in the death of the prey. Other feeding strategies like detritivory (eating stuff that is already dead) or herbivory, do not involve the killing of the eaten.
I like global warming, otherwise much of the greatest nation on this planet would still be under a giant glacier.
I hate the ocean!
Hate it.
“..or herbivory, do not involve the killing of the eaten.”
The plants are killed in the process.
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